Soundbites with Sutter – Monday practice report

Following the Kings one hour practice on Monday, here’s what coach Darryl Sutter had to share just before the team headed out to the airport for their return trip to San Jose…

On the team not playing their best 60 minutes of hockey yet:

“That’s not a bad thing. That’s what good players and good teams say. Some teams are just happy to make the playoffs. If you’re always trying to find ways to get better, that’s a good thing.”

On Kyle Clifford’s status:

“Everybody that’s on the ice is available. At some point, it will be good to have him back.”

On if there was anything specific the team worked on in practice today:

“It’s not standard practice because you don’t have practice days. First off, we’ve been taking out out the injured guys. If you can’t have everybody that’s healthy out there than you can’t have regular practice- it’s just that you’re filling in for me and it doesn’t work because there is some things that you work on in practice that only can happen in a game if your used to playing with that guy. So when you don’t have regular practices and you’re not able to recover after games because of injury and fatigue, then you cant have regular practices. Today’s the first really regular practice we’ve had since the 2nd day after the first round and the first day after the season.”

On having more than one day off between games:

“Like what I said after the last game, we come home and two days allows us to get one to use as a practice day and obviously allows some guys to heal a little bit. Like you asked about Cliffy (Kyle Clifford), if we played tonight then I wouldn’t have had him practicing with the whole team. So that’s the advantage.”
On the advantages of coming back to Los Angeles to practice:

“Just our own practice facility. You know, what are we going to do up there for two days. If we all stayed up there fore two days we would’ve been bored last night and today, right? Because you’re basically sitting around a hotel and there’s nothing to do.”

On if there is any momentum from one game to another:

“Zero. And it’s something that different guys have asked all the time. There’s zero momentum. Once you get in the playoffs, there is zero momentum unless someone is way better than somebody and as you see, nobody is. There is zero momentum. I mean if there’s a carry over then you’re probably not a playoff team, anyways.”

On if there is a key to having success on the road:

“No. We’ve won in a lot of different venues, a lot of different circumstances that I don’t think so. When you talk about at home or on the road, it’s just about playoffs. Who cares what record was any other time, quote honest. It’s just about playoffs.”
On Trevor Lewis being ‘down’ when the media spoke with him Saturday night:

“Heck, I talked to him on the way home, for 45 min. I talked to him on the airplane. I didn’t think he was really down, I thought he was getting ready again.” (MM: “Is there anything you said to him to help him get over that moment?)…”Over what moment?” (MM: “Being in the penalty box and watching the game winning goal in overtime.” …“I have the same frustration that the players have and it was nothing to do with being down, believe me. It was that our goaltender had been contacted with a lot more than their goaltender.”
On if he talks to Rob Shick (head of the NHL officials) about the lack of penalties called on contact being made with Quick:

“No they get all the video they want and we don’t have it during the game, right? So we can’t use the emotional response as any sort of advantage for us. that’s what we talked about with Jonathan (Jonathan Quick) and when you ask what Jonathan, you know, there’s nothing to gain by reacting to officials. What’s the advantage to it? Nothing. As long as they are aware of what other teams are doing and we are a good enough team that we handle that really well and we will continue to.”

On making things more difficult on Antti Niemi:

“Their defense blocks a lot of shots, you know that, so we have lots of traffic there but so do they. So there’s a lot of shots that don’t get [counted] and I know thinking that the stats are taken off somebody that’s sitting up there looking out of his glasses going “oh that was a shot, that was a shot” and really they’re, it’s, they’re not really that close. I know you get it between periods and after the game but when you actually do it it’s not that close. It’s about bearing down on opportunities because you don’t get very many.”

Several players also had a lot to share after practice. For those quotes, please see the links below.

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